


Becoming A Monster

by hunters_retreat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean in Hell, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-19
Updated: 2009-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-04 15:53:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5339828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hunters_retreat/pseuds/hunters_retreat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>  <i>"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster" Nietzsche</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Becoming A Monster

**Author's Note:**

> I blame this entirely on [](http://autumn-lilacs.livejournal.com/profile)[autumn_lilacs](http://autumn-lilacs.livejournal.com/)  for her meta on 4.11.  It made me think about Dean and Hell. 

 

  
“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

 

 

 

 

Blood filled his mouth and he wasn’t sure he remembered what it was like without the metallic taste, couldn’t remember what anything else tasted like as much as he tried.  He thought back on morning pancakes with bacon and sausage, burgers at greasy diners with french fries dipped in ketchup or gravy or even mayonnaise, steak or tacos or kung pao chicken.  Nothing, not even the taste of his brother remained to him. 

 

 

It filled his eyes as well, tinting the world in shades of red when he could see at all through the pain.  They didn’t allow him to blackout, some trick of hell or perhaps the skill of his torturer but he remained awake through it all.  Remained awake to scream until his throat bleed and his muscles were too exhausted to so much as twitch when the knife blade slipped through sinew and vein.

 

 

They seemed surprised that he lasted so long on the rack, but he knew enough about this game to hold on as long as he could.  In the end though, it was inevitable.  Everyone breaks in the end, has some point they can’t take, something that snaps inside them and they don’t have the reserve to fight anymore.

 

 

It took them thirty years to take on the face of his lover, thirty years to let his arms loose, let his body heal and allow for hands to sooth and lips to kiss it all away.  Thirty years to push inside of him, make his breath shallow and harsh, thirty years to make him come with his lover buried inside him. 

 

 

And when he was put on the rack the next day and they continued to wear his lovers face, it took less than a minute to surrender.  The demon took off Sam’s face and Dean agreed to do anything they wanted so long as he never had to look at Sam’s face in hell ever again. 

 

 

 

 

The first soul they put on the rack was an old man.  He had lived a long life, a perverted life, they whispered in his ear.  Did things that would make him sick to hear of, stealing pretty young women off the streets and tying them up so they couldn’t scream, couldn’t run away.  Dean had carved into him without remorse because it could have been his mom, could have been Jess this man stole away and someone should pay for that. 

 

 

At first, his torture was boring and uneventful.  He had no imagination when it came to such things and Alastair simply watched.  He realized that Dean had issues with pedophiles, especially the kind that preyed on young men and he began bringing them to Dean by the handful.  Alastair would start at one end and Dean would watch in his periphery.  He learned.  He learned where to cut and how deep and what hope could hold a man together and what threat could rip him apart.  If he sometimes found himself chanting ‘don’t touch me again’ while he worked, no one ever said anything.  In the end, he found out that a little exposure and some practice brought out all sorts of creativity in him.   He had a talent for making them break, for taking his time and doing it with few cuts.  He didn’t need blood, he had insight.  Alastair applauded his inventiveness and Dean threw up for two hours at the pride he felt from the praise.  His next soul didn’t last ten minutes.

 

 

He stopped asking after a while, stopped listening to the whispers about what evil they’d done in the world and just cut and sliced away their remaining humanity.  He was a demon factory really, taking them from the basest of human to the darkest stretch of the human mind, turning their souls so black their eyes changed to match.

 

 

He didn’t know how long he’d been at it when they brought her to him.  She stared up at him with eyes that were too wide and it took him a moment to recognize her.  She was screaming against her bonds and he could hear the pretty little accent and the clipped tones she used to speak to him in.  ‘ _She sold her soul to us’_ The whispers told him what he already knew, knew that she’d been too young to understand the price but had been willing to give anything to stop her father from committing the sin that rippled so deeply in Dean’s own soul. 

 

 

He took the gag from her lips and she licked them, trying to get moisture back, thinking she had an ally in Hell.  “Dean, please, you have to help me.”

 

 

He closed his eyes at her voice, at the things it reminded him of.  Remembered hearing it over the phone as he looked across the car at his brother.  Remembered hearing it in a graveyard as she stared over her gun at them.  He turned his eyes down to her and smiled.  “Don’t worry Bela, I’ll give you exactly what you deserve.”  She didn’t.  He knew that in everything she’d done there was no sin that demanded this sort of behavior but it wasn’t her sin to the world he was removing.  It was her sin to Sam.

 

 

He held the knife out and didn’t bother putting her gag back on.  She screamed prettily as he sliced her arm first, letting the pain flood her.  “That’s for stealing my father’s rabbit foot.”  It was how they’d met her. 

 

 

He sliced again but this time it was blouse and skirt he cut.  “That’s for shooting Sammy.”  He said with a smirk.  It was always amusing how they clung to modesty.  There was no flesh here, only illusion and pain but they all clung to the false and the more they held on, the more power it gave him.

 

 

He sliced into her stomach next, her body bucking up against it, blood smearing the perfect white skin so beautifully that he reached forward and ran his hand threw it, rubbing it in like lotion.  “You should have left us alone Bela.  Should have never tried to kill us to save yourself.  Shouldn’t have stolen from us or used us.  You should have learned by then to stay clear of hunters.”

 

 

He kissed her leaking eyes next, tasting the salt there and licking his lips at the memory of other tears kissed away.   He sliced a neat line across her cheek because of her vanity, then pealed her eyelids off because she kept closing them.  He talked softly as he did it, talked about his brother and how much he loved him.  Asked Bela if she’d ever loved her father, ever loved him enough to forget what society labeled sin.  She continued to scream until only sobs remained and Dean continued talking, telling her about how Sam had been so young and pliant in his hands that first time, how he’d begged Dean in the end to make him come.  How even when he’d gone off to Stanford he’d still call Dean in the middle of the night, no words, just stuttered breath and panting moans that let him know how close he was to coming. 

 

 

Bela cried and sobbed and begged for release when Dean asked if she thought her father was in hell, if she thought he’d like a friendly visit.  When Alastair came to check on her, he’d clapped Dean on the back and smiled.  “You have a lot of promise my son.  A lot of promise.”

 

 

Bela wasn’t on the rack the next day.  Dean knew it was because whatever deal Alastair had been offering her, she’d accepted to get away from Dean and his sin that dripped venom in her blood.

 

 

 

 

When the light speared through his eyes and the flesh of his arm burned with fire that pulsed through his veins he knew it wasn’t hell.  It wasn’t a demon that had come for him.  The pain was intense but pain wasn’t what had broken him and no demon would think to hurt him that way anymore.

 

 

Not many demons would dare to try to hurt him anyway.

 

 

When he found himself in a box in the ground and struggling to breathe he fought his way out, fought with the same determination he gave to everything he did because he didn’t know how to be any other way.

 

 

He found a convenience store and took what he needed, surprised by the all too human reactions to the simple things.  He tasted water and not blood, breathed in fresh air instead of sulphur, and felt desire than had nothing to do with sinew and bone marrow.  He wanted to dance in the world, scream his return to the living but there was no one there to answer, no one there to witness.

 

 

He had to find Sam, had to protect him.  Blood filled his mind, memories and images of deeds done and witnesses, things he’d endured and thinks he’d practiced.  He’d gone to hell to save his brother’s life.  As much as he wanted to stop the flow of memory, to stop the pain of remembrance, he had something more important to do.  Yes, he had saved Sam’s life, but it wasn’t enough anymore.  Dean knew what he was, knew he belonged in Hell with the demons and the damned, but not Sam.  He’d tortured people for 10 years to keep his brother’s face from appearing there.  It was time to make sure it was for real.  He had once saved Sam’s life, but now he had another mission.  He had to find Sam. 

 

 

He had to save his brother’s soul.      

 

 


End file.
